Office Hours

[knowlogram]

[Come talk to or shout at your lovely IOU Counselor. His door is always open, unless someone else is already inside.]

[Please mark your toplevel with the week and day it takes place. Comments are screened for privacy and murder-plotty purposes.]

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Week 3, Tuesday after the motive reveal

[abysslord]

[Knock knock, Yuri's here.

Are you guys tired of me yet.]

[knowlogram]

[The door swings open on its own under Yuri's knocking.]

Hey there! You wanted insurance, right? I'm more of an academic than a salesman, but I'll see what I can do for my favorite little crimeboy.

[abysslord]

[Yuri lets out a hard breath through his nose, enters the office. He doesn't hate the nickname per say.]

It might be less insurance and more a line of questioning, now that I've thought about it. You're supposed to be objective in this, right? No choices, just doing your duty.

[And he doesn't hate HuBERT for that. Just gonna go take a seat.]

This motive of yours. You...are aware that, for me at least, a majority of my victories involved keeping myself alive, right? Am I just going to disappear if you take one of those away?

[He knows what you said to Barry, but he has to be sure. He has to be.]

[knowlogram]

Yup yup, there's things I've got discretion on, but when it comes down to it what the bosses say goes.

[He considers carefully as Yuri asks his more pertinent question.]

I-i-it might get a little tricky if it were something fatal? But you won't just vanish or anything.

[abysslord]

So am I just going to be a dead body, then?

[He recalls the group's meeting, Shiki claiming that she was in a different body entirely to the one she ought to have. Would he wake up in an entirely new body?

H...How...?]

You guys aren't going to do anything like in that Frankenstein book, are you? I do not want to be an angry shambling corpse person.

[knowlogram]

You're not gonna be a zombie, no. ...But if you were, you'd still be, you know, you, as much as you wanted to be.

[abysslord]

[What the fuck is a - you know what, no, he doesn't want to know right now.]

Hubert, will I still be alive and breathing?

[Simple question. Very simple. Does he need more context? Yuri will repeat the context as many times as he needs to.]

[knowlogram]

Yes.

[abysslord]

[...

It's the most direct answer he's gotten from HuBERT in all the time he's here, and yet. Part of him doesn't know if he wants to believe him.

Still, Yuri makes a point to breathe out and let go of some of his visible tension. It's still there, still as strong, but all vibrating under the surface.]

Alright.

[And he'll drop it there, and take a glance up at that picture of HuBERT's nemesis.]

...So there's one other thing I'm still confused about, if you don't mind me asking. [Points at the dreaded green man.] How did this guy become your nemesis anyway? He only exists in the cart game, right?

[knowlogram]

[Deep breath.]

HE KNOWS WHAT-

[Hubert stops himself, straightens his bowtie a little.]

I would prefer to not go into detail. But I was attempting to do something VERY IMPORTANT and he was too incompetent to allow me to succeed.

[abysslord]

[blank face]

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he knows what he did, whatever crimes he's committed. I don't, so that's why I was asking. No need to shout.

[It's a chiding tone, but not an angry one.]

Still, thanks for explaining that much. Even if it doesn't make any sense, if he's just in a game.

[knowlogram]

His villainy crosses all meta-narrative barriers of medium.

[abysslord]

So, what, it even crosses into reality?

[Hubie do you need Help]

[knowlogram]

Bold of you to assume that there's a meaningful distinction to begin with.

[abysslord]

...There is.

[Don't get all meta on him now]

Knowing the line between fantasy and reality is kind of important.

[knowlogram]

You're all from different worlds, there's probably less of a distinction than you're thinking.

[abysslord]

[Sighs!!!]

Okay, look, if you want to get into that, we can. I know my life is my reality, and the others' lives are their reality. This place is our shared reality. But the games, which are pretend, are fantasy.